Random Politics & Religion #00

An Internet address originating from the Department of Homeland Security was tied to entries made on the Wikipedia pages of North Carolina Rep. Renee Ellmers and California Rep. Kevin McCarthy, alleging that the two Republicans were having an affair.

It is unclear if someone at the federal agency actually was behind the edits, which were first noted by Washington Free Beacon reporter Lachlan Markay. But both changes — McCarthy’s and Ellmers’ — show that a user at the IP address, 216.81.81.85, made them on Thursday.

That address comes from DHS’ offices in Springfield, Va.

An alleged affair between McCarthy, the House Majority Leader, and Ellmers, became the source of intense speculation on Thursday after McCarthy announced in a closed-door meeting that he was dropping out of the race to replace John Boehner as Speaker of the House.

Both McCarthy and Ellmers have denied the affair.

In explaining his bombshell decision, McCarthy said that he is now unable to lead House Republicans and referred to comments he made last week that the House Select Committee on Benghazi has caused Hillary Clinton to suffer in presidential polls. Despite those remarks, McCarthy was still considered a lock to win the Speaker race.

But one turning point for McCarthy seems to be a letter from North Carolina U.S. Rep. Walter Jones urging Republicans running for leadership positions to drop out of the race if they have committed “any misdeeds” in Congress.

“With all the voter distrust of Washington felt around the country, I’m asking that any candidate for Speaker of the House, majority leader, and majority whip withdraw himself from the leadership election if there are any misdeeds he has committed since joining Congress that will embarrass himself, the Republican Conference, and the House of Representatives if they become public,” Jones states.

As Markay noted on Twitter shortly after the announcement, a user with an IP address from DHS edited McCarthy’s and Ellmers’ Wikipedia page referring to articles about their alleged affair.

The edits read, “Ellmers is alleged to have been involved in an extra-marital affair with Republican House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy since 2011” and link to articles from Breitbart News and GotNews, an independent website published by Charles Johnson, a former Daily Caller contributor.

Johnson reported earlier this year that sources told him that McCarthy and Ellmers were having an affair. Johnson also reported that Ellmers’ attorneys slapped him with a “cease and desist” letter earlier this week.

The agency’s IP address is tied to edits on a number of other Wikipedia pages. Some of the edits were for U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s page. Other edits were found on pages for a variety of movies and other miscellaneous topics, suggesting that edits could have been made by rank-and-file employees.

A spokeswoman for DHS says that the agency is looking into the edits.

“DHS has immediately launched an investigation into this serious matter,” Marsha Catron told TheDC. “If it is discovered that a DHS employee, using Government property, is responsible for these alleged actions, immediate and appropriate disciplinary action will be taken.”

Didn't that actually happen to Gingrich's replacement? He came in and was immediately ushered out because of an affair. Gonna need some more evidence on this one tho.

Swapnil shaved. Plot twist!

In the last day, Hillary Clinton announced her opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a deal that she will likely claim she only championed as part of her duties as secretary of state and that, in reality, she just as likely helped to create. She probably opposes it as strongly as she did NAFTA, which her husband created, and which she and Barack Obama campaigned against in 2008 and then proceeded to do nothing about. This is a habit. She probably is doing this because, in spite of a career in which neoliberalism got her this far, Bernie Sanders is starting to eat her lunch among labor voters, progressives and anyone who is not a big-money donor. You know, the people who vastly outnumber the latter and do things en masse, like vote.

In the last 10 days, once-prospective Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy praised the House Select Committee on Benghazi for doing what it was always — only — ever intended to do. "Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right?" he told Sean Hannity. "But we put together a Benghazi special committee. A select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping." McCarthy, who possesses both the look and adroitness of a personal injury attorney, accidentally disclosed that the allegedly most vital investigative body in American government is a petty leverage tool as sound as a plastic spork trying to pry open the pull tab on a fruit cup. Telling the truth only cost McCarthy his shot at a job doing the opposite.

But while the former issue addresses an agreement that covers 40 percent of the world's total trade and represents a volte-face by a candidate critics accuse of having zero core beliefs beyond electability, the latter is what will make headlines forever. A trade deal, the future of American labor and the shrinking manufacturing base of this country is something for "unserious" social-democrat whackos like Bernie Sanders to talk about.

Um, like, spoiler that ***.

Well he is still the Majority Leader, unless he decides to step down from that position, he remains fairly important.

Oh this one is good. The Rolling Stone, quite liberal politically, is going after Hillary BIG TIME!

There Is No Real Hillary Clinton
People aren't meant to be relaunched as often as phones, but here we are

Way too long to copypasta in full here are the first few paragraphs:

Edit: They come down pretty hard on the Benghazi committee too.

....
The union members, environmentalists, and anti-capitalists are the voters.

The corporations are the donors.

EVEN YOU KNOW THIS.

Yes Chanti, we know.

True class....

Hey, it's not my fault you have your head stuck in the sand to believe that the democrats/liberals are just as guilty to listen to special interest groups who also donate to their campaign funds.

Hell, even corporations donate to liberals/democrats. In the case of Clinton, even foreign governments donate to her campaign fund foundation who also donates to her campaign fund.

Bernie Sanders accepts and has accept donations from the NRA, how is any democrat going to say the NRA isn't a special interest group?

Source? I honestly can't remember if he's even expressed a stance on guns, but he seems way off market for the NRA. Although, buttering both sides of your bread isn't a new thing, I guess.

When Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders jumped into the 2016 presidential race, he was widely hailed as a far-left socialist who would appeal to the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. A liberal challenge to Hillary Clinton, said Politico. True progressives’ liberal alternative, trumpeted FiveThirtyEight. But before liberal Democrats flock to Sanders, they should remember that the Vermont senator stands firmly to Clinton’s right on one issue of overwhelming importance to the Democratic base: gun control. During his time in Congress, Sanders opposed several moderate gun control bills. He also supported the most odious NRA–backed law in recent memory—one that may block Sandy Hook families from winning a lawsuit against the manufacturer of the gun used to massacre their children.

Sanders, an economic populist and middle-class pugilist, doesn’t talk much about guns on the campaign trail. But his voting record paints the picture of a legislator who is both skeptical of gun control and invested in the interests of gun owners—and manufacturers. In 1993, then-Rep. Sanders voted against the Brady Act, which mandated federal background checks for gun purchasers and restricted felons’ access to firearms. As a senator, Sanders supported bills to allow firearms in checked bags on Amtrak trains and block funding to any foreign aid organization that registered or taxed Americans’ guns. Sanders is dubious that gun control could help prevent gun violence, telling one interviewer after Sandy Hook that “if you passed the strongest gun control legislation tomorrow, I don’t think it will have a profound effect on the tragedies we have seen.” (He has since endorsed some modest gun control measures.)

None of these views are particularly shocking for a Vermont representative: Sanders’ deep-blue state has both high gun ownership and incredibly lax gun laws, and it’s perfectly logical for the senator to support his constituents’ firearms enthusiasm. And a close friend of Sanders once said that the senator “thinks there’s an elitism in the anti-gun movement.”

The act’s primary purpose is as simple as it is cold-blooded.
But Sanders’ vote for a different kind of pro-gun bill is more puzzling—and profoundly disturbing. In 2005, a Republican-dominated Congress passed the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA). This law doesn’t protect gun owners; it protects gun manufacturers, distributors, dealers, and importers. The PLCAA was the No. 1 legislative priority of the National Rifle Association for years, because it shields gun makers and dealers from most liability when their firearms are used criminally. It is one of the most noxious pieces of pro-gun legislation ever passed. And Bernie Sanders voted for it. (Sanders’ campaign has not replied to a request for comment.)

Because the PLCAA deals with tort law—not a topic of great interest for most Americans—it didn’t stir much outrage when first passed. But the act’s primary purpose is as simple as it is cold-blooded. Every state imposes liability on manufacturers who are negligent in their production and sale of products. If I crash my Prius because its accelerator malfunctions, I can sue Toyota for negligently manufacturing a faulty pedal. If my child dismembers himself with a blender at Sears, I can sue Sears for negligently leaving that blender within a child’s reach. If I get stabbed by a teenager with a switchblade, I might be able to sue the pawn shop owner who illegally sold a knife to a minor.

Before the PLCAA, most states imposed some form of tort liability on gun makers and sellers. If a gun manufacturer made an assault rifle that could slaughter dozens of people in a few seconds, for instance, one of its victims might sue the company for negligently making a gun that could foreseeably be used for mass murder. If a gun seller sold a gun to a customer without performing any kind of background check—and then the buyer opened fire on the subway—his victims might sue that seller for negligently providing a gun to a mentally unstable person. The standards in each state differed, but the bottom line remained the same: Victims of gun violence and their families could recover financially from the people and companies who negligently enabled gun violence.

The PLCAA changed all that. Remarkably, the act wiped out gun liability laws in all 50 states, rendering them invalid except for a handful of narrow exceptions. (So much for states’ rights.) Thanks to the law, victims of mass shootings are barred from suing the companies that produced a wartime weapon that no civilian could ever need. With few exceptions, victims cannot sue a gun seller for negligently providing a semiautomatic weapon to a lunatic who shoots them in a movie theater. Even if a jury decides a gun maker or seller should be liable, the PLCAA invalidates its verdict. The law tramples upon states’ rights, juries’ rights, and fundamental precepts of America’s civil justice system. And it received Bernie Sanders’ support—in both 2003 (when it was first introduced) and 2005 (when it finally passed).

Every few years, the families of mass shooting victims take gun makers to court for creating a weapon seemingly designed to kill as many people as possible in as short a time as possible. Every time, they run headfirst into the PLCAA. Right now, the families of Sandy Hook victims are searching for a loophole in the law, so they can sue Bushmaster for making the gun that sent 154 bullets through 20 children and six adults in 264 seconds. They will probably fail.

"If I crash my Prius because its accelerator malfunctions, I can sue Toyota for negligently manufacturing a faulty pedal. If my child dismembers himself with a blender at Sears, I can sue Sears for negligently leaving that blender within a child’s reach.

Several liberal congressional representatives have recently spoken out against the PLCAA, and if Democrats retake both houses of Congress, they may make repealing the law a priority. Hillary Clinton, who voted against the act as a senator, would almost certainly sign a repeal bill. Would a President Bernie Sanders? Until he says otherwise, we have every reason to believe the ostensible progressive hero would stand behind the vile legislation he championed just a decade ago.

the Vermont senator stands firmly to Clinton’s right on one issue of overwhelming importance to the Democratic base: gun control.

They will probably fail.

I want Hillary to win your next election so Bill is officially the first lady.

Hillary Clinton supports breaking up or reorganizing financial firms that are "too large and too risky to be managed effectively," her campaign said Thursday as it unveiled a set of proposals aimed at reining in what it sees as Wall Street's abuses.

"Regulators would have the explicit statutory authorization to require that they reorganize, downsize, or break apart," according to a fact sheet released by the Clinton campaign.

The Democratic presidential front-runner is also proposing a "risk fee" on big banks that could amount to billions of dollars per bank each year, and also penalties on “harmful” high-frequency trading strategies.

“To prevent irresponsible behavior on Wall Street from ever again devastating Main Street, we need more accountability, tougher rules, and stronger enforcement. I have a plan to build on the progress we’ve made under President Obama and do just that,” Clinton said in a written statement. “We can’t go back to the days when Wall Street could write its own rules.”

The policy proposals lend Clinton ammunition—or at least armor—for the Democrats' first nationally televised presidential debate on Tuesday. It will be her first face-to-face confrontation with two candidates who support breaking up the big banks and intensified regulation of Wall Street: Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont socialist who has become Clinton's surprise chief rival for the Democratic nomination, and former Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley.

Clinton's targeting of high frequency trading may amount to her most meaningful punitive move against Wall Street so far. The proposal would also take aim at spoofing, the practice of rapidly submitting fake orders and then withdrawing them in an attempt to move asset prices in a desired direction.

The Justice Department and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission recently accused a London trader of spoofing that contributed to the May 2010 flash crash, when close to $1 trillion in U.S. stock value vanished in minutes before recovering.

Though Clinton, who served eight years as a senator from New York, has considerable Wall Street backing, she is under pressure from the left wing of her party. In Bloomberg focus groups earlier this week, voters cited Sanders' championing of middle class workers as a reason for his appeal.

President Barack Obama proposed a risk fee similar to Clinton's, which the administration estimated would raise $110 billion, in his 2015 State of the Union address. Financial companies fought the proposal and Senate Banking Committee Chairman Richard Shelby of Alabama said the plan was "dead on arrival."

The fee would not be applied to insured deposits and thus would not have an impact on traditional banking activities, the official said.

If Clinton were to determine that it was a necessary complement to the fee, she would call on regulators to impose higher capital requirements, according to the plan.

People actually think "The Martian" was based on a true story.

Do we actually want to encourage these people to vote?